Tamil words in English

N. Ganesan GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU
Tue Feb 17 14:34:50 UTC 1998


>Both forms and all the related names for the Koel or Eudynamis
>scolopaceus (Linn.) in modern Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages are of
>course derived from Sanskrit kokila, Prakrit kOila, *kOyila.
>
>Erik Seldeslachts


kuyil could have arisen independently in Dravidian.
Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (Revised edition) 1984
has the entry no. 1764 as:

1764 Ta. kuyil koel, Indian cuckoo, Eudynamis honorata;
(kuyilv-, kuyin2R-) to call, whoop, halloo; utter, tell;
kuyiRRu (kuyiRRi-) to tell, utter. Ma. kuyil, kuzil
Indian cuckoo, Cuculus or E. Orientalis   ...

In connection with the meaning to call, etc.,
Dr. Bh. Krishnamurti in a posting on 1/17/98 said that
the root "*ku:(y) occurs in all subgroups of Dravidian
(DEDR 1868; Skt. ku:jita- is said to have been derived from Dravidian)."
kuyil could be related to this root.

We must consider another possibility.
In Collected Papers on Dravidian Linguistics, T. Burrow
says in p. 198 that Sanskrit kokila which is attested
from mahAbhArata onward is from Dravidian.

N. Ganesan





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